The Hong Kong Alliance claimed that the owners' committee was making it hard for the museum to operate -- forcing visitors to leave their names and personal information and restricting visitor numbers.

A translated work that apparently censored remarks on politics - such as Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee Chu-ming comparing the handover of Hongkongers to China to "surrendering Jews to Adolf Hitler's Germany" - will be recalled after its writer cried foul over the unapproved changes.The book's mainland-funded local publisher, Chung Hwa Book Company, agreed last night to withdraw the Chinese edition of A Concise History of Hong Kong from sale. It also apologised to the history professor who penned the work in English.Professor John Carroll, associate dean of the University of Hong Kong's arts faculty, earlier said he was "shocked and disappointed" about the changes....

Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Chancellor's Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. His most recent book is China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know.IRVINE, CALIFORNIA – We live in an era fascinated with David-versus-Goliath tales. The Biblical confrontation is invoked to describe everything from sporting contests to popular uprisings against dictators. Malcolm Gladwell’s forthcoming book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants promises to give the story the ultimate pop-culture treatment. And the parallel between the classic tale and the unfolding story of the former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s solitary battle against America’s massive security establishment is inescapable.But Snowden received help from an unexpected source, Hong Kong’s government, which disregarded a US request to hold him to face espionage charges and allowed him to leave for Moscow. In fact, Hong Kong’s siding with a “David” should not surprise us, given that its relationship with mainland China is the quintessential David-versus-Goliath story – and it is still in progress.